Armor Class in Heart of Fury Question (Spoilers)

I'm doing a Heart of Fury run starting from level one, I'm right before the lich in the great forge. My front line is a Half-Orc Berzerker I've been using him to dual wield till now but he is getting destroyed in a few hits. If I put a shield on him with berzerker rage and buffs I can get his AC down to -15 but I still get ripped through like paper, should I even bother with a shield or is there an AC I can get him to that will make him be able to dodge a few hits?

It gets up to 175 atm with rage (he has the +10 hp neck) and 19 const. It seems to be physical damage the giants with 2 heads (entis?) are the worst I had some trouble with the drow as well. I've been mostly using summons to tank but they die very quickly too.

ah yes, ettins are nasty on that difficulty, they deal crushing damage, so if you have resistance to crushing, you should give those items to however is going into melee with those guys, plus in the area where you start fighting ettins and the blue myconoids there is a wizard to the top right of that map who sells some elemental summoning spells, try summoning in elementals to help soak up some damage, while your ranged characters tare it up from the back